Wark
by Evil Cheese Of Doom
Summary: Enter the Abbey... scary place of doom, or residence of man-crows...? Rated for safety. Warning: Disturbing lack of romance.


_DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. NOTHING! Except possibly the idea for this fic, and even then that was thought of by one of the Voices... they're watching... A quote in here has been borrowed from Medalon (by Jennifer Fallon). Own a copy, but not the copyrights. Go ask HarperCollins... And there are several languages stuck in here. Most of them are English, and the rest are pretending to be other languages. :3_

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The familiar hissing and grinding of thousands of Beyblades battling filled the frosty air. They echoed through the old stone halls and rang out in the snow-filled wintry courtyards. The sky was as white as the ground, skeletal trees and evergreens outlined starkly against its steady glow. The occasional crow wark'd from overhead, an indistinct ball of fluffed-up black feathers with a savage beak gleaming in the cold sun. _How could the crow stay up, if it was so round? Roman says that crows eat lunches, inside or outside a box, plastic wrapping or bag. They shouldn't be light enough to stay in the branches..._

The snow crunched beneath his heavy boots. He glanced away from the crows to look at his father, who continued to face ahead, at the huge doors. He yanked on his arm and hissed, "Otec! Are we nearly there?"

Dmitry Ivanov glanced at his son, nodded and looked up again.

Yura dragged one booted foot in the crisp, somewhat clean snow. The whiteness rippled and broke around it, shadowed with the same blue as his eyes. He wondered about that for a moment. His other walking-boot, various quilted fabrics with a rubbery base, was covered with droplets of water and thin powdery snow. He shook it off. _Snow is cold and wet. It shouldn't be on my warm, dry boot._ His right arm swung jerkily by his side, the string tying the mittens together catching on his clothes and the seams of his jacket, as they approached the steps. His father handed over the identification papers, and the sekretar' snapped something. He glanced up, not recognising the accent, and saw a man with heavily gelled blue-black hair and angry dark violet eyes growling at them.

He gestured wildly at the boy and repeated what he had said very slowly and as clearly as he could manage. "Show ... face."

The boy nodded and swiped back his hood, his bright hair spiked up and slipping out of its careful styling. The sekretar' checked the photograph against the boy, muttering in a strange language. He finally slid the papers down the table, murmured, "hai" and turned to the next pair. The boy and his father moved on, Yura not seeing anybody behind the table. "Yuri Ivanov?" a slightly ...strange... voice child's voice asked. Yuri nodded. Something thudded onto the table, and his father took the papers back. The voice from behind the desk snickered something in the language the sihteeri had been muttering in.

Yuri tugged on the table, trying to climb onto it or at least see over the top. Being four was getting annoying. "What'd you say?"

The voice told him, "I said, I'm sure we'll be great friends. Trust me!"

And, naïvely, he did.

Yuri didn't know that, to the novice bladers of Balkov Abbey, 'trust me' meant 'screw you'.

"Yura!" hissed his father. "Hurry up!"

He managed a final look at the table-hiding-the-boy, in front of which was a scruffy-haired brunette, before being yanked onwards towards a door with a large sign plastered on it. He couldn't read it yet, but it looked... scary. The piece of paper boded, or would have, if he knew what 'bode' meant.

" " " " " " " "

The door creaked. It should have. It was heavy enough. Yura found himself in a huge, vaulted hall with pretty carpets stuck on the walls. His father explained that they were called tapestries, and were supposed to keep out the cold. Yura wondered-- for a moment-- if they were there for the parents to look at, not for the kids to be warmed by every day.

Then he lost his train of thought as a man in a black robe swooped over, armed with a cotton-tipped stick. "Open your mouth," the man-crow ordered, in a _wark_y voice. He obeyed, the stick was wiped inside his mouth, and he was sent off to wait. One boy, a blue-eyed blonde, was listening to a shorter brunette murmuring in Danish. He was sat down next to the blonde, and ordered not to move.

He scuffed his feet, and mentally screamed, _CROWS!_

Eventually, the glasses-wearer leaned back around the silent blonde (who might have been frozen to the chair) and smiled a cheerful "Goddag!"

"...god...dag..." Yuri repeated.

"I'm Johann, and he's a Viking. That's why he seems so dead!" Johann laughed at his own joke. Yuri _tried_ to smile. He tried very hard to smile. All he managed was a slight shudder which got him a hurt glance from Johann, who went back to complaining in Danish.

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_Please press the funny little blue button. It likes you. No, really!  
__Criticism welcome... flames are OK, as long as they're still warm._


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